Apple MacBook Air (5,2) Core i5 1.80 GHz 13″ 256GB SSD (2012) The ultimate everyday notebook is better than ever. The Apple MacBook Air now features the latest Intel processors and graphics, faster flash storage, and a 720p FaceTime HD camera. All packed into a notebook that’s incredibly thin and light. With up to 60 percent faster graphics performance, it makes everything you do feel quicker and more fluid than ever. And the latest flash storage is up to 4x faster than a traditional hard drive, making MacBook Air remarkably responsive. The MacBook Air with 13.3-inch screen (view larger). Now with two USB 3 ports, a Thunderbolt port, and an SD card slot (view larger). The MacBook Air also now includes both a high-speed Thunderbolt port and two USB 3 ports, enabling you to easily connect to external displays and a wide variety of high performance peripherals. This version of the MacBook Air (model MD232LL/A) sports a 13.3-inch high-resolution display, 1.8 GHz Intel Core i5 dual-co

I purchased both the newly updated 13″ MacBook Air and the updated 13″ MacBook Pro the day they were announced at WWDC and released for sale in June 2012. After using the two machines side-by-side for a couple weeks now, I can say that the MacBook Air offers superior performance in virtually every respect to such a degree that I’ve pretty much stopped using my brand new MacBook Pro. Of course the Air (which I got factory upgraded to the 2.0 GHz i7 processor and 8GB of RAM) is lighter, slimmer, and sleeker than the Pro, and yes, it does have a much higher resolution display, but I was surprised just how much faster the MacBook Air is compared to the Pro is despite the Air’s slower CPU clock speed. The SSD hard drive on the MacBook Air makes an enormous difference in everything from casual web browsing to video editing.

Speed and Performance: Advantage MacBook Air

Apart from the hard drives and port configurations, the technology inside the machines is virtually identical in both the newly refreshed MacBook Air and MacBook Pro. Both Pros and Airs come with either i5 or i7 Intel “Ivy Bridge” processors, Intel HD Graphics 4000, USB 3.0, and lightning-fast Thunderbolt ports. While the MacBook Air models are at a disadvantage to the MacBook Pro models in terms of CPU clock speeds, any performance disadvantage from the processor speed is more than made up for by the lightning fast performance of the Air’s SSD hard drive, which Apple markets as “Flash” storage. In everyday tasks from gaming to web browsing to watching Flash movies and editing video, the MacBook Air is faster significantly faster in virtually every task. The Air boots up in less than 12 seconds while the Pro takes upwards of one minute.

Screen: Advantage MacBook Air

Once you get used to the super high resolution 1440 x 900 LED display on the MacBook Air, the 1280 x 800 back-lit LED display on the MacBook Pro looks downright grainy and primitive. Simply put, once you get used to a higher resolution display, the 1280 x 800 display on the 13″ MacBook Pro just isn’t acceptable. Even for simple tasks like email or word processing where you wouldn’t think the resolution would matter, the graphics look grainy and pixelated, which just isn’t acceptable for a pro-level laptop in 2012.

Upgradability: Advantage MacBook Pro

One major difference that’s important to consider between the Air and the Pro is that the Pro is more flexible and adaptable in terms of upgradability. With only a screw driver and about 10 minutes of your time, you can add more memory to the Pro, replace the hard drive, and even add a second hard drive in place of the optical disc drive. The Air, on the other hand, is stuck in the configuration you purchase it in except that you can opt to replace the SSD “Flash” hard drive with a higher capacity drive. However, both the Air and Pro have USB 3.0 (which is five times faster than USB 2.0 and backward compatible) and Thunderbolt (which is ten times faster than USB 2.0), I see no reason to replace the Air’s hard drive any time soon given how cheap external hard drives are and how fast the connection has become.

The MacBook Air is the most beautiful computer ever produced by man. The aluminum case is impeccably designed, almost tailored to accommodate the necessary internal components, while maintaining practical ergonomics. It’s an incredibly thin, svelte, sexy little notebook. The aluminum case seems sturdy and durable, and its mechanics are very similar to the time-test unibody construction of the MacBook Pro. The MacBook Pro, on the other hand, is a bit of a dinosaur in its bulky circa 2006 unibody. The Pro is heavier than a half gallon of milk at 4.5 lbs, while the MacBook Air weighs in at less than 2.9 lbs. Battery life is roughly even on both machines at anywhere from 4 to 7 hours depending on workload and settings.

Summary Judgement: Buy the MacBook Air

Simply put, the guts of the two machines are basically the same, but the Air’s SSD hard drive gives it a tremendously significant boost in performance. Sadly, the MacBook Pro’s 5400-rpm hard drive leaves the machine unable to capitalize on the newest, most expensive Intel “Ivy Bridge” i5 and i7 processors that you’re paying a $300 premium for in the newly updated Pros. If you are going to buy a Pro, invest the extra money and get it upgraded with a SSD hard drive and get an extra external hard drive if you need additional cheap storage space for multimedia files. When you also consider the superior display, lighter weight, increased portability, and lower price of the MacBook Air, it’s hard to find a reason to justify purchasing the current 13″ MacBook Pro, which to me looks like a dinosaur rapidly headed for extinction…

I am a professional photographer, and recently purchased the Macbook Air 13″ base model as an addition to my desktop workstation. It replaced a 2010 13″ Macbook Pro as the machine I’ll use when away from the office. After a few days of testing, here are my thoughts:

Processor: The one word response would be “sufficient.” Overall, the beauty of this laptop is that it gets out to the way and simply lets you do what you need to do. The processor isn’t the fastest on the market, but I have never been left waiting for any processing tasks to date. As an email access point, word processor, and internet browser there is more than enough processing power to have a boatload of applications and multiple tabs open without a stutter. Web pages scroll nicely, new programs open in a second or two and when it comes to productivity tasks this is night and day better than my iPad since I can actually use the keyboard, Microsoft Office etc. The processor doesn’t need to be all that powerful in large part due to the flash memory storage, upgraded in this generation to the faster 6 Gb/s connection so that read/write processes don’t drag the computer down at all. While I use my desktop for all of my heavy duty processing of images and HD video, I will occasionally need to process an image or two on the road. So far I have found that Photoshop CS5 runs very nicely on this model, with nearly instant effects utilizing simple layer/curves adjustments. Processor intensive tasks such a gaussian blur related filters have a slight lag, taking approximately 30% longer than they do on my i7 920 desktop processor that is a few years old. It all gets done though, is far faster than my previous laptop, and nothing I regularly do has taken more than 2-3 seconds of processing time for an image, totally acceptable. It’s the 30-40 second drags from my prior laptop that made me ready to throw it out the window. However, the few seconds of slowing is enough that I wouldn’t want to process thousands of photos on this laptop, but for the casual edit it is more than sufficient. Lightroom runs smoothly as well, in large part due to the cache being on SSD storage, so even my 5D MkIII raw files at 30MB each are rendered to a smaller jpeg preview that the lighter processor can handle and render quickly off the SSD. Imports/export rendering take longer on this machine to be sure, but by that time I’m off doing other errands so I don’t mind this lag. Video editing is functional as well and would likely work for most casual users, but massive projects simply wouldn’t be possible on this machine for a multitude of reasons ranging from storage space to video card, screen size, processor etc. Overall, it does handle all casual productivity tasks that I need faster than any laptop I’ve owned, and can handle more processor intensive image applications acceptably for a laptop, though not fast enough that I’d consider using this as a full time professional machine.

Screen: The 13 inch model seems to be the perfect blend of portability and functionality for me. This particular screen is vibrant, and has the capability to professionally render the images that I need with a few caveats. Firstly, the factory set color profile for the screen looked good enough for basic use, but to my sensitive eyes had a bluish hue to it. Apple laptops are notoriously inaccurate for color rendition (increased contrast, saturation in reds and blues) so I would highly recommend that users who do much imaging work create a custom color profile their monitor. Even casual users are likely to be disappointed when actually printing images that look great on this screen (i.e. pumped up colors and contrast with a flat and lifeless print in real life). Also, for all of us that send files over the internet to Facebook/email etc, I would think it would be nice to know what your photos would look like “on average” to most of the users out there without a similar Mac screen. The “profile” utility built into OS X is worthless, and I’d recommend a software solution such as ColorEyes Display Pro, combined with a sensor such as the Spyder 4. I wish I could have assessed the default profile to find out how much it was off at baseline, but my software can only analyze custom profiles that it creates. Needless to say, things look a lot different after the profiling, and at 75% brightness I was able to get the monitor down to an average dE of 0.51 with a max dE of 2.99 in the greys (less than 1 is great accuracy, less than 5 is sort of standard to start professional work for me). I also notice that the edges of the screen on all sides have a very slight dark tinge/wave that extends for about half an inch. It is only faintly noticeable, shows up most against white backgrounds, and decreases with increased screen brightness. This isn’t a defect unique to my unit, as it seems to affect all of the models at the Apple store that I went to see, as well as a few friends with Airs from…

Going from a White Macbook circa 2008 to the 2012 Macbook Air is a massive leap forward in technology for me. The big question is deciding which one will be best for you: The 13″ Macbook Pro or the 13″ Macbook Air.

Things I like:

It’s fast! I plan on using this when I travel for Office, Adobe Lightroom and other photography applications. I’m able to move quickly, even when shuffling around hundreds of photos in Lightroom. This is remarkably different from my old Macbook.

The SSD. Absolutely fast. Bootup/shutdown/restart times are in seconds. Yes, it’s pricy, but I love it.

Solid build. It feels much like other Macbook Pros, despite the thinness. Yes, it feels like it’ll be a magnet for scratches, so I’m off to find a case/skin.

Opposite side USB ports! The most annoying thing about my Macbook (old White, new MBP as my office computer) is that there’s not enough spacing between the USB ports, so a chunkier flashdrive and another USB device won’t fit. Now I don’t feel like I have to choose what gets plugged in.

USB 3.0. I’ve got enough USB 3.0 flash drives and the speed increase will be noticeable. Thunderbolt technology is supposed to be a lot faster, but a lot more expensive and quite frankly, cost-prohibitive.

Weight: I’ve gotten used to heavier laptops so this feels downright thin. Thin enough that I don’t notice it in my bag.

Screen resolution: 1440×900 gives me more real estate than the 1280×800 of the 13″ Macbook Pro. The screen was bright and vivid.—Things I don’t like:Non-upgradeable: So much for adding more RAM down the road.

New Magsafe power connector: This might cause an issue with places that have older Macbooks as well and determining which is which. That’s what labels are for.

Software update: 350MB worth of fixes out of the box. Ugh.—Sound. It’s decent enough – it seems like any other laptop’s audio that I’ve ever used. If you’re serious about audio, you’ll have external speakers (or even pair it up with Airplay speakers.)

Battery: I got about 6 hours in a torture test of watching video while surfing the web on WiFi. It’s pretty decent and within the 5-7 range that Apple stated.

DVD drive: I don’t miss it. I thought I would, but I don’t. It just adds weight and bulk to the computer.

The webcam is also a higher resolution 720p camera. It’s quite nice, but now the downside is that during Facetime, my friends and family can see my ugly self more clearly. Also, early adopters won’t have the computer come with the newest version of OS X – Mountain Lion. That will come in mid/late July. It’s nice that this will come gratis to those who bought early.

The big question is Macbook Air or Macbook Pro? It comes down town a number of issues. If this will be your primary computer, then Macbook Pro is the way to go. The MBP is a faster computer with more storage and an optical drive. If you plan on doing any high-end computing, you’ll notice the difference. If this is going to be a secondary computer or if weight is the deciding factor, then the Macbook Air is for you. Either way, you can’t go wrong.

The brand, logo and product names are trademarks of their respective companies. If we create a link to a product in a review, sometimes we may get paid a commission if a visitor to our site purchases the product. For more details, please see our Disclosure Policy.